INTO THE WOODS Blu-ray Review

Disney’s Into the Woods takes some of your favorite Brothers Grimm fairy tales such as Little Red Riding Hood, Jack and the Beanstalk, Cinderella, Rapunzel and throws them all together into a big musical stew.

So I’m not a person who is really into musicals (though I do like less than a handful) that being said, it was interesting to see all of these childhood fairy tales intwine together into an original story about a baker (James Corden) and his wife (Emily Blunt). The Baker and his wife are not able to have a child do to a spell on the house they live in, but when the witch next door (Meryl Streep) offers to release them from the spell on a few conditions, that’s were the fairy tales all start coming together.

I know this movie was a musical but the first 10-20 minutes, seemed like a musical overload. It seemed like no musical number really stopped and there was always someone waiting in line, waiting to sing their story. After the first 20 minutes, it seemed like the musical numbers finally let you breathe, so that was good. You finally had some actual dialogue to break up all of the singing.

I do think that all of the stories did blend in together pretty well. None of the characters seemed out of place and all of the storybook characters had their share of screen time, well except one, Johnny Depp. Being a huge Johnny Depp fan, I was a little disappointed that he had just a few minutes of screen time. Back to the characters having their stories told, the thing I really liked about the film is that the original stories of characters like Cinderella, had their pre-Disney stories told. If you remember the original story of Cinderella and how her sisters were willing to cut parts of their foot off, in order to fit in the glass slipper, Disney actually left that in the film wish was a good surprise to me.

As far as the singing goes, all of the actors did a pretty good job. Each actor showed off their chops. While actors Anna Kendrick and Johnny Depp have proven in the past that they have more than just acting talent, actors like James Corden, Emily Blunt and more, surprised us with some hidden talent.

Now to my favorite part of every Blu-ray release, bonus features! Disney delivered once again with a plethora of extras. They had a few featurettes, commentary from the filmmaker, music and lyrics from the film, and a never-before-seen Sondheim original song sung by Meryl Streep. It also has 5 golden (Easter) eggs.

I think if you’re a fan of musicals, you should definitely pick this up. It’s quite a lengthy film, especially for a musical and also has a nice amount of extras. All of the actors delivered both with acting and singing. Plus the quality of the HD was very crisp. If you’re not too big into musicals, you may want to pass on this one if singing in movies seems to be a bit much for you.

Disney’s Into the Woods will be released on blu-ray combo pack, digital HD and Disney Movies Anywhere (DMA) ON March 24, 2015.